Lucca

The drive to Lucca was uneventful, the most excitement was ordering lunch in an Auto Grill. Italians don't queue.

Our apartment on Lucca has only three steps. What a change from the one on Genova. We were met by the host’s parents, we never did meet our hostess in Genova.

We've stayed in Lucca twice before, plus a day trip here in 2002. It is a charming city. If we had time and money, this is where we would settle for a few months to learn the language.

We had dinner at La Nonna Clara. It was very good. We had zucchini flowers stuffed with mozzarella di bufala and fried, osso bucco with mashed potatoes and had to take leftovers home.

Although we've only been on our trip a few days, we decided to do laundry as we didn't know when we'd have another chance. We struck up conversations with a woman from Australia and another from Massachusetts while we waited for our laundry. Afterwards we walked around the charming town and visited the Botanical Gardens, a project of Napoleon’s sister in the early 1800’s. The climate in Lucca must be like the Puget Sound as there were several azaleas in bloom and some Pieris Japonica (Andromeda). There was an enormous giant Sequoia and a cedar of Lebanon that they had fitted with wire devices to stabilize.

We had dinner again at La Nonna Clara. I had pappardelle with cinghiale and Tom had porchetta with lovely roasted potatoes.

We had ferry tickets to Palermo, leaving from Livorno at 11:30 pm, so most of the day was our own except we had to be out of the apartment by 11:00 am. We packed up, retrieved the car, drove back to the apartment, loaded up, then moved the car to the free parking area outside the city walls. This is the beginning of the tourist season, so the pedestrian traffic was high, but most of the people appear to be Italian.

We had booked a walking tour through Viatour. Lesson learned, they tack on a service charge. We could have saved a bit just buying tickets at the Tourist Information office. However, our tour guide, Lucia, was very good. Especially interesting is that Lucca’s periods of development can be seen in its walls and architecture. There is the old Roman area, complete with the remains of an amphitheater, the walls of which have been converted to apartments. The medieval walls have been converted to walking paths. The moat is now a large park. Of course, since Lucca was the birthplace of Giacomo Puccini, there are frequent music festivals. At one time there were more than 100 churches within the walls, but Napoleon's sister took over some of them and sold them for funds to beautify the city.

After our tour we had a cappuccino and sweet, then heard the beginning of a thunderstorm. We walked as quickly as we were able to the car and got to it about two minutes before the rain began.

It was still some time before we could board the ferry, but we drove to Livorno, had a horrible piece of pizza, fueled up and drove to the ferry terminal. The ferry is part of the Grimaldi line, but not the royal family of Monaco, instead a family from Naples. The ship is huge, capable of transporting many tractor trailer rigs and cars. Once we boarded we had a bit of pasta for dinner. It was mediocre at best and that is being charitable.